Artists to Know: Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio was an Italian artist active in Rome, Naples, Malta, and Sicily between 1593 and 1610. His paintings, which combine a realistic observation of the human state, both physical and emotional, with a dramatic use of lighting, had a formative influence on the Baroque school of painting. Although he died at a very young age, his paintings display a sense of consistency that many artists struggle to emulate.